It's All Yellow
by Arlia'Devi
Summary: Three times Gaby was pregnant and the one time she told Illya.


It's All Yellow

I

The first time is in their New York apartment. She's looking out over the park, sitting in their lounge setting designed for four people, trying to block out the silence of the apartment. It's empty and not even the jovial voices of Dick Van Dyke and his family from their television set can fill the rooms adequately enough.

Looking out on the cold, wet February afternoon, she puts on her soft white gloves and takes her handbag. Then, going into her lonely, bare bedroom, she rolls up her stockings and puts on her polished black shoes. Her bed is untidy, messy, undone. The sheets need to be soaked and washed and maybe bleached, but she doesn't have the effort now, can't look at the speckled stained mess of her life. So she leaves it and gets a scarf from her wardrobe and definitely does not look at Illya's side, at his vests and slacks and how his woollen jumpers still have the slight smell of his aftershave – the same bottle he packed for his trip to London five and a half weeks ago.

Gaby steps out onto the sidewalk and immediately feels sick.

She could have called Solo. Should have called Solo. But who could trust him to shut his mouth. Who could have trusted him to keep it from his best friend? No. Gaby does this alone. No one needs to know.

The surgery is white and sterile. The lights are blinding as she sits with a magazine like there's nothing wrong at all, like there isn't a twist in her stomach and a feeling of dread and hopelessness and that she's just going in for a flu shot and not to see if her baby, her sweet ten-week old little one, is still alive. The baby she didn't know she was carrying for over seven weeks, the baby who Illya went away never knowing about.

When the nurse calls her in, she almost throws up. When they can't find anything, despite all their machines and their poking and prodding, she does anyway. It's all very natural, they say, these things happen, it was very early anyway, and you're only twenty five, you've got a lot of time. Don't be afraid to try again.

Their New York apartment has two bedrooms, a large kitchen and living room and a sizable terrace. So that's where the rose plant goes. It sits in the corner of the terrace in a black terracotta pot, just a little sprig in something so big. It grows quickly. It's almost foot high when Illya comes home to her three weeks later.

"A plant," he says, looking out onto the terrace.

"Yes," she says, hugging him around the waist, smelling his woollen jumper, familiarising herself with his scent, body and warmth again. "I always wondered what to put out there, and now I know."

"It's nice," he admits.

II

The second time, she's sure she's pregnant. It's July. There hasn't been a doctor's visit since the last time, but she hasn't bled for three months almost now and her normally flat stomach is slightly rounded, much to Illya's sudden curiosity. She doesn't have to guess what he's thinking. Maybe this time. Maybe this year. Maybe this can work. But they've been married for three years now, and nothing's ever come of it ever. She blames herself – all those years she spent around the nuclear warheads, underneath cars, inhaling chemicals. It couldn't have been safe.

This time, they're not working on nuclear warheads. They're in Paris and canvassing a warehouse when she is sent to the floor in crippling pain. Illya's there and a quick shot her assailant's head finishes him.

"Gaby," he mutters, touching her shoulders.

"I'm fine," she grits, holding her side.

"You should go back to the car."

"I want to finish this mission," she says because it's hers. She's done all the research and seduced an arms dealer in the process. It looks like Illya wants to say something, but then he closes his mouth and thinks better of it. Gaby gets up. She stretches. It doesn't hurt too much. She finishes the mission. The next morning she bleeds. It's just her period, she says to Illya in the shower. He believes her. The timing is right.

When they get back to New York, everything is normal again. Solo comes over for dinner. They make risotto. No truffles.

He is out on the terrace smoking a cigarette. Gaby joins him for a drink.

"These are nice," he says, motioning to the two potted roses either side of the terrace. "Didn't know you had a green thumb, Gabs."

"They're Illya's, actually."

Solo raises an eyebrow with a small chuckle and then accepts the tumbler of vodka offered to him.

III

She's twenty six now, on this sunny day in January. And she's lost two babies. In her mind, they don't have names or faces or genders. They're just things she'll never have. Things that weren't really ever there.

On her birthday, she gets up with a sigh and smiles when Illya presses a kiss to her shoulder and whispers happy birthday in sleepy, sodden Russian. She doesn't know when his birthday is, he's never told her, never wanted to celebrate it but he never forgets hers. Even her 24th, when he sent her a necklace from Tiffany's while he was in Argentina and made sure Solo went around and sang her happy birthday and watched her open the present.

"We will go somewhere special."

"Twenty six is not a big birthday celebration. Thirty is the next one."

"I do not care," he mutters and then drags her into the shower. He brings her to orgasm with just his mouth, and then turns off the shower and they get dirty all over again before Gaby gasps and says she needs to get to work, that they want her in at the downtown U.N.C.L.E. offices today and Illya hesitantly lets her go.

When she gets to the office, Solo is there.

"Happy birthday, Gabs," he says and hands her a small package.

"Thank you, Solo," she says and opens the present. It's a pair of sunglasses, the latest Chanel design, picked up from his recent visit to Paris. "I love them. She puts them on, "Look good?"

"You pull them off. Gotta run," he says. "Got a job in Canada this afternoon. Send my regards to Peril." He leaves then, letting her turn back to her motorbike.

The U.N.C.L.E. office is nice. It's a large converted warehouse, with ample space and only a train ride from the apartment. And the bike she's working on, a Harley, has been her pet for the last five months. Developing a modified motorbike wasn't exactly the most glamourous role in espionage, but it took her mind off everything, she got paid well and Illya enjoyed taking her designs for a test drive around the warehouse.

When she gets home, Illya has dinner ready and hands her a glass of white wine as she enters.

"My dearest house husband," she smiles, taking a sip of the wine, though he's not, just on a few days of leave. Although she wonders sometimes if he'd really mind being a house husband with the way he enjoyed rearranging the apartment or baking cakes on a Sunday. Probably not. '

There's a swipe of grease on her cheek. He tuts. She laughs and sits down at the table.

"I have been thinking," he says, sitting down, in that serious tone of his.

"Hmm?" she looks up.

"We should get a pet."

"A pet?" she says, startled.

"I have never had one."

She frowns then, and feels a little guilty. "Who would look after it… when we go away?"

"Solo."

She laughs. "I can't imagine Solo taking care of anything, let alone a pet."

Illya looks patient, a little determined. A little sad, maybe.

"I would like a pet," he reiterates.

The following Friday, they adopt a kitten from the local shelter.

IV

The kitten does a lot for her. It's sweet in a terribly naughty way. Illya names her Devyat, because he is obsessed with Get Smart and doesn't like the name Barbara and they settle on just calling it Dev, because it's the only thing the cat responds to.

Illya goes to work early on a mid-September morning and his weight leaving the bed wakes Gaby and Dev. She blinks and pats the cat down her spine, running her long tail through her finger and thumb. Illya kisses her goodbye, scratches behind Dev's ear and then rushes out the door. Dev stretches. Gaby does too. Then she gets up.

She dresses. She goes to the post office, and then the grocers, and then the dry-cleaners to pick up Illya's suit. She reads a book in the afternoon with Dev curled in her lap, makes dinner for Illya. They eat when he comes home, after he showers. They watch a little television. They make love, revel in the simpleness of domestic life and go to sleep.

The next day, a Saturday, Solo comes around unannounced. He laughs when he sees Illya sitting on the lounge, cuddling up with the cat.

"That puss is like your baby, Peril," he grins. "It really tarnishes your tough look, you know."

"She is not my baby," Illya protests, but then feds Dev a little bit of his tuna sandwich and watches as Solo rolls his eyes.

When Solo leaves, after eating their food and drinking their liquor, Illya takes a shower. When he gets out, Gaby is reading a book in their bed. He adjusts his towel and takes a big breath.

"I would like a baby," he says, very clearly, very concisely.

Gaby looks up from her book and smiles. "I thought Dev was your baby?"

"A real baby," he clarifies.

Gaby puts her books down. Then she smiles. "Me too."

And then they try to make a baby.

V

It's January. Illya is home still. Three days ago, he got back from a mission in London, but he was only away for two weeks which had been completely manageable. He'd missed the cat, he had said as he walked in, had missed her, and had been worried he'd be sent to Russia again.

Gaby smiles as she watches him make dinner.

"You are not drinking," he says, his eyes slicing over to her with a smile.

"Well," she mumbles, inching a little closer to him. "We are trying."

"Ah, yes, we are."

She kisses him then, sweet and slow. When she pulls away, he raises his eyebrow in question, "You are to tell me something?"

"Maybe soon."

"Maybe soon?" he repeats. Dev jumps up onto the counter. Gaby picks her up gently and puts her back down on the ground where she circles around Illya's feet for a bit before settling on the lounge.

The next week, Gaby realises she hasn't bled for two months. Delightfully realises, hopes that this time it's right because everyone is ready and wanting. She makes an appointment and realises that January has quickly bled through into February and it's been almost a year. She pushes it aside the next day when she goes to the doctor, doesn't think about it when Illya kisses her goodbye to go to work – a very banal domestic thing to do, had they both not been spies. She tells herself not to get her hopes up when she's on the train – she's been this far before and lost everything.

"I'd say… ten weeks. Around Christmas New Year's," says the doctor. "It looks good."

"I've lost them before. Two of them. I don't want to tell my husband until-,"

"Come back in four weeks," he says, touching her shoulder soothingly. "We'll know more by then."

She says she will. Then she buys a new handbag.

When Illya comes home she shows him her handbag, and then he doesn't ask anything else about her day. They watch television, eat dinner, feed Dev and make love.

It's March when she goes back to the doctors. She's rounded again, her little stomach is poking out and Illya has that look of happy curiosity on his face. His eyes shine when he runs his hand over her in the shower like he's asking her to divulge in this secret, to confirm it this little threat of hope between them. But she doesn't. She dresses and puts on her coat, because even though it's spring, it's still cold and the streets of New York are like wind tunnels sometimes. She kisses him goodbye.

"Everything looks good here, Mrs. Kuryakin," he says, moving the ultrasound around. "Drink a lot of water. Eat well. Come back to me in six weeks. Tell your husband."

She will.

She tells him by buying a little baby onesie and dressing it on the cat. The cat, at first, doesn't cooperate, but soon she manages to dress Dev and do up the buttons and pull her tail out of the nappy clasps. In the end, Dev is not too pleased with her new look, but Gaby thinks it looks sweet.

"Is this joke?" calls Illya from the lounge room. Gaby steps in from where she's doing her hair, because neither of them want to cook tonight and she thought it'd be a good time as any to go out for dinner. He's holding up the cat all accusing. "Did Cowboy do this?"

Gaby laughs and puts in her earrings.

"It is not laughing matter," he says and slowly begins to peel the cat out of the suit. Then, when Dev jumps away to smooth back her ruffled fur with her tongue, Illya spreads the white baby jumpsuit over his knees.

"Is small," he says, like he can't imagine anything small enough to ever fill it.

She smooths her hands over his shoulders. "What do you think it means?"

He pauses for a moment. Gaby can almost hear his brain trying to figure it out. The same sort of silence he exudes when he hovers over a chess board.

"We are having a baby," he says eventually, looking over his shoulder to Gaby. "Are we?"

She smiles. "Is only little. It's only early. Too early to tell anyone but you."

He grins and then jumps up.

"We are having baby?!" he yells, his accent heavy, like it always is when he's sleepy or injured or stressed, or apparently, excited.

"Yes!" she says and he hugs her, kisses her deeply, doesn't want to let her go. "But you can't tell anyone, not for a while, not until it grows."

He is grinning brilliantly and his hands are shaking holding her, but not in the bad ways she's come to expect. Then he pulls her into a hug again and she cries a little into his shoulder. And Illya keeps saying, "We are having baby," to her, into her ear and hair and cheek. "I am so lucky." She knows he means it.

VI

The most beautiful Gaby has ever been to him is when she is standing six months pregnant, her hand under her stomach and a soft smile on her face as they go through their purchases for the nursery. He puts down the can of paint, a colour he wasn't allowed to pick out because she said it would be a surprise, and he wonders if it will be blue or pink because he thinks he knows what she's playing at.

She's holding a blanket to her as he puts down the sheet to begin painting their second room, all grey and dull.

"I always wondered what to put in here," says Illya, cracking the paint tin. Cracking the lid, he looks into the paint tin. "Yellow?" he hums.

"Yeah," she said, picking up a paintbrush. Tentatively, she brushed the excess off the side of the tin and applied it over the grey wall. Standing back, she regarded the mellow, soft colour. "Yellow. It's nice, I think."

"It is nice," agrees Illya and they begin to paint.

When the afternoon grows long, they decide to break for a cup of tea but Gaby is set on finishing around the skirting boards and is confident in Illya's tea making abilities. The cat weaves about his legs, then scratches to go out on the terrace where her kitty tray is.

He lets Dev out to the cold winter afternoon and waits while she does her business. The city is grey and clouds hang low, hiding the tops of the skyscrapers. And then, cut against the greyness, are the soft, barely opened buds of the two rose bushes that have, in the year they've been there, flourished and grown almost as high as the wall. The winter bloom, Illya realises though he's noticed them before, he's never really looked at them. There they are, standing tall and strong and with the glimpse of the most delicate flowers hidden between leaves. Yellow flowers.

"Illya, I finished the skirting board, come look," calls Gaby.

Illya realises Dev's pushed past him to go back inside, so he closes the door, takes the cups of tea and goes back into the nursery. It's all yellow, now, almost every inch of greyness gone. And there was his wife, glowing amongst it all, reaching out for the tea.

"It's beautiful, Liebling," he says and kisses her.


End file.
